N National 2019 - 2020 W E Oracy S Pioneers Forum London National Oracy Pioneers Journal National Oracy Pioneers Journal Transforming teaching & learning through talk Our mission is for all children & young people, regardless of their background, to have access to high quality oracy education enabling them to develop the communication skills and confidence necessary to thrive in the 21st Century. We believe that an education in oracy should be an entitlement for every child rather than an exceptional opportunity provided to an often privileged few. Over the past year we have worked with 170 dedicated Oracy Pioneers across five regions of the UK. Each supported to develop a critical understanding of oracy pedagogy and practice, they have committed the year to applying this to their own settings and evaluating the impact on their students. All participants were tasked with developing an Oracy Sequence of Learning based on the practical application of oracy in their own classrooms. From devising and performing weather reports to deepen students’ understanding of weather patterns in KS1, to using the Harkness method to explore Shakespeare’s Othello in KS5, each Sequence of Learning. For our Programme Participants, we hope it provides a record of achievement for their work and developing expertise in oracy teaching and learning this year. For teachers and schools, we hope that it provides inspiration in how oracy can be introduced and embedded into a range of classroom settings across all key stages. A huge congratulations to the 2019-2020 cohort, and we wish you the best as you continue to pioneer oracy teaching and learning across your school. Newcastle Sheffield Birmingham London Southampton Contents 1. The Frog Prince Year 1 2. Living in the wider world Year 2 3. Would you rather live in the UK or Kenya? Why? Year 2 4. Horrible Histories Year 4 5. To understand the Grenfell Tower tragedy Year 4 6. Creation of Demi-God and Greek Myth Year 5 7. Anne Boleyn Year 6 8. Squares to stairs Year 7 9. Speak Out - UN Global Sustainable Development Goals Year 7 10. How relevant is the study of Shakespeare in today’s classroom? Year 7 11. Money matters: significance of money Year 7 12. Live news reports: Coastal Erosion at Holderness Year 8 13. “Someone with a bad past will never change” Year 8 14. Using the Great Storm of ‘87 to improve student oracy Year 8 15. Forming poetry Year 8 16. An Inspector Calls Year 9 Wimbledon Chase Primary School The Frog Prince Year 1 Curriculum Objectives: • Through talk the children will be able to analyse, compare, • Apply new vocabulary (utility words) influenced by the class • Reciprocal speakers and listeners who are able to sequence and clarify thinking. text during everyday speaking, reading and writing. value what others say. • Build vocabulary (utility words) and meaning through ‘My • Self confident speakers who are able to share their ideas • To become familiar and confident to use new talk Turn’ / ‘Your Turn’ talk based on the class text. Followed by and opinions with those in their group, across groups and strategies across throughout the sequence of learning. independent application of the new vocabulary. with the whole class. Jane Baines Impact: Sequence of learning: The Voice 21 Project has had a great impact on the children’s ability to engage Lesson 1 with one another through planned and purposeful talk sessions that build on Initially the children were provided with sequencing pictures from the story of ‘The Frog Prince’. They were grouped in threes and previous learning. It has given the children a greater opportunity to talk and make asked to analyse, compare, discuss and sequence the pictures without any prompts. Next, the whole class were asked to come decisions together with minimal talk from the teacher. The teacher is there as a back together as a class, with the class teacher, where they were given some verbal and visual clues. After that the children were facilitator to talk and learning, providing information, knowledge and clarification asked to talk about any changes they would like to make based on the clues. This was repeated once more. Then each group of misconceptions where necessary, to guide the children’s thinking, talking and compared and discussed their story sequence with another group of three and made any changes. Finally, the children came back ultimately their learning. This strategy encourages independent learning through as a class, with the teacher to agree a final sequence. tasks which lend themselves to problem solving and kinaesthetic activities. Lesson 2 Most of the children worked well in their groups of three, which were kept the During the next session, the class started with two ‘Today’s New Vocabulary’ which are always utility words that are taken from the same throughout the sessions for continuity, unless changes were required. This class text. This strategy uses ‘My Turn’ / ‘Your Turn’ talk and explains the meaning of the words, how they can be used in a sen- enabled the children to build on previous talk from prior learning. tence and then in the context of the class text using mimes. After that, the class text/story was read to the class using excessive tonation, expression and the mimes from the MT/YT talk. Next the class discussed and agreed upon mimes/actions to help retell The project encouraged the children to share their ideas and opinions in a safe the story. Finally the class retold the story using the mimes/actions, with clear expression and intonation through MY/YT reading. environment, primarily in small groups and then to a greater audience (the class). (Copying the teacher’s actions and tonation.) Previously reluctant speakers grew in confidence and began to share their ideas, present to the class and project their voice with tonation. Lesson 3 The following session started with MT/YT new vocabulary task. Then the children worked in groups of 3 and used their story Overall, the children’s language (sentence structures) including vocabulary and sequence/map (without the story) to retell the story using the actions/mimes from the previous session. The children were provided meaning developed noticeably over a short period of time, including EAL and with a word bank of topic words and utility words that were represented with a picture for support. Finally each group presented SEN children. There was a noticeable difference in collaboration and turn taking their retelling of the story to the whole class. (listening to each other’s ideas) and then building on those ideas to come to a final conclusion. Lesson 4 The next session started with MT/YT new vocabulary task. After that, the children worked in threes and were given pictures of During the course of each session the children were engaged on each task and nouns from the class text/story, which they were asked to match with a noun word on a strip of paper. Then they were given a set seemed to really enjoy the learning journey. The end product (children’s writing – of adjectives that they had to link with the nouns and discuss if their choices made sense e.g. ‘wet well’. Then the children came to retell the story) was evidence that the Voice 21 strategies truly supported the back together as a class to check the meanings of all the adjectives before going back into their groups to make any changes to children’s application of skills and knowledge for future learning. their work. Lesson 5 The following session started with MT/YT new vocabulary task. It then involved the children sorting the adjectives from the nouns which were on strips of paper and then forming sentences that made sense based on the previous session and the context of the story, using the coordinating conjunction ‘and’. The children worked in threes spotting the tricky words, digraphs and trigraphs in order to decode the words. Once they had read the clues, they matched them to a character. The children worked in groups of three, where one of the three was given the job to spot any ‘marvellous mistake’ where the adjectives did not match the noun. Each group shared their sentence strips with another group and made comparisons. Lesson 6 Finally, the children retold the story of ‘The Frog Prince’ using the new vocabulary inc. synonyms (from MT/YT task from each ses- sion), actions/mimes, expression and tonation before recording the story in their books. The children used the story sequence/map, topic words/utility word maps, their noun and adjective sentence strips to support their writing. 1. Houldsworth Valley Primary Academy Living in the wider world Year 2 Curriculum Objectives: • To learn about respecting the needs of ourselves and • To learn about looking after the local environment others • To learn about where money comes from and what it is • To learn about groups and communities that they belong to used for • To learn about how to keep money safe Phoebe Parker Impact: Sequence of learning: What I really noticed throughout the oracy activities was that all children Session 1 were engaged, including my more reluctant learners or those that are During session one we introduced children to the discussion guidelines. The children came up with ideas on how to easily distracted on the carpet. I liked that children were learning through have a good class discussion. I also introduced sentence stems and the discussion roles ‘builder’ and ‘clarifier’. We talk rather than sitting on the carpet listening to the teacher. All children then sat in a circle and had a class discussion about respecting the needs of ourselves and others.